Armenia destroys over 3,000 Azerbaijani monuments in its territory - expert PHOTO

Faig Ismayilov, expert on cultural heritage, research fellow of the Institute of History of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) has said that the Armenian leadership committed cultural genocide not only in Karabakh and adjacent territories, but also in Western Azerbaijan.

This opinion was expressed in Ismayilov’s article entitled "Zangazur monuments are being massively destroyed by Armenians", according to Azertag.

The Armenian authorities are purposefully carrying out a policy of both ethnic and cultural genocide in the territory of current Armenia, trying to erase the traces of the Azerbaijanis who are the historical and ancient inhabitants of these territories, by looting, destroying, misappropriating the cultural heritage of the Azerbaijani people, and also causing great damage to the Azerbaijani history and culture by changing the content of most of them.

The ancient toponyms were replaced by Armenian names in all territories of current Armenia.

As a result of the ethnic cleansing that started in 1988, the property and cultural heritage examples of hundreds of Azerbaijanis were misappropriated by Armenians.

Some 3,500 historical and cultural monuments, 500 cemeteries, 391 mosques belonging to Azerbaijan were completely destroyed by Armenians in the territory of present-day Armenia.

According to the instructions of the Armenian political leadership, the ruins of more than 900 historical and cultural monuments remain today in Gafan, Meghri, Khot, Shinuhayr, Alidere administrative settlements of Zangazur province.

While observing these settlements, one feels that the battle between heaven and hell was held here.

Armenians destroyed more than 900 historical and cultural monuments, namely, residential houses, mosques, Albanian-era shrines, artistic stone samples, tombstones, horse figures, in these villages. Azerbaijan's cultural heritage was vandalised here.

Khot village

Shinuhayr village

Alidere village

The village, which means Gulab (fresh smelling area) in the Azerbaijani language and is renamed into Shinuhayr by Armenians, is located nine kilometres in the south of Gorus district of Western Zangazur, on the left bank of Okchuchay at an altitude of 1,500 metres above sea level. Shinuhayr village is at a distance of 68 kilometres from Gafan.

Zangazur district, which was part of Elizavetpol Governorate during the Soviet period, joined the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic together with Shinuhayr village in 1930 without any reason. The ethnic population of the village consisted of Azerbaijani Turks at all periods.

Although it is claimed that Shinuhayr was created in the 17th century, stone samples belonging to the Oguz-Az culture of the 1-2 millennium BC, horse figures, as well as stone chests, inscriptions, artistic stone samples from the Albanian period can be observed in the village.  

There were more than 300 residential houses, public buildings and a mosque from the 17th-18th centuries in old Shinuhayr village.

The tendencies of nationalism and separatism that arose in Armenia in 1988-1990 were also observed in this village.

The Azerbaijani population of the village was subjected to ethnic cleansing and left the village. All residential houses, historical and cultural monuments were destroyed here.

Some 300 historically important buildings and facilities, artistic stone samples, graves and gravestone monuments in the village and around 200 historically important buildings in the surrounding areas were destroyed by Armenians.